“The prophets of chocolate doom predict that the world’s supply of sustainable cocoa could run out by 2014 (Society’s Child, 2011). According to an article published on the internet, Angus Kennedy, the editor of Kennedy’s Confection and a leading British chocolatier, has made this dire prediction.

Various factors are cited as the causes of the decrease in cocoa bean availability which in turn will lead to disappearance of chocolate from our supermarkets. The political unrest in the Ivory Coast which produces 40% of the world’s cocoa beans, has according to Kennedy already “significantly depleted the number of cocoa farmers”. In January 2011, the price of cocoa beans increased by 10% and economists predict that a metric tonne of the beans could soon cost $3 720, a price last experienced in January 1979.

In addition to political upheavals that affect the production of cocoa beans, the cocoa plant is also vulnerable to two diseases, black pod diseases in Africa and witch’s broom in Brazil. The latter infestation is a fungus that affects the cocoa plants and caused disruptions in supply in the 1990s (Trader Tech, 2011).

The world supply of cocoa beans is thus facing serious threats which also endanger the quantity of chocolate that will be available to consumers.”